


Unfinished

by beeawolf



Series: Time of the underdog [5]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dog BB-8, Gen, M/M, implied past neglect, strangely placed transitions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 16:25:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15822612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeawolf/pseuds/beeawolf
Summary: Finn passed out in Poe’s kitchen on a Thursday afternoon, shortly after lunch.





	Unfinished

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this is partly a joke because the story itself feels very unfinished still to me. But I decided to throw it out there rather than stare at it endlessly and never do anything with it. Hopefully it's all right.

"I love you with what in me is unfinished.   
  
 I love you with what in me is still

Changing,"

— Robert Bly, from “In the Month of May,” _Eating the Honey of Words_

 

\---

 

            Finn passed out in Poe’s kitchen on a Thursday afternoon, shortly after lunch.

            It was a surprise to both of them, really. He’d thought you were supposed to feel these things coming. But it had just _happened_ , which Finn found extremely unfair. One second he was standing there telling Poe about his class, and the next second the floor was sliding away and everything flickered dark.

            “Whoa, hey,” Poe was saying, suddenly very, very close. Finn blinked up to find Poe peering down at him, a hand coming to rest gently on his wrist. “You with me, buddy?”

            Finn mumbled something that may or may not have been words. Poe’s fingers were too hot on his skin, the tile cool and hard beneath his head. Had he _hit_ his head? There was this definite ache somewhere.

            Or everywhere. It was hard to tell. He could feel BB-8’s cold wet nose poking at his bare arm, and he twitched away from it.

            “Finn?” Poe said, his voice getting this edge to it now.  

            “I’m fine,” Finn answered. His lips felt numb.

            An odd expression flitted across Poe’s face, relief and something else, and then he let out a soft exhale. “That’s my line,” he said, and sat down cross-legged on the floor beside Finn, studying him. “You’re pulling a me.”

            Finn leaned gingerly up on his elbows. “Ow,” he said. Okay, yes, the ache was definitely everywhere. “I’m pulling a what?”

            “A me,” Poe said, gesturing at himself. “A Dameron, Jess calls it. When you’re literally on the floor and you tell people you’re fine anyway.”

            “Oh,” said Finn. “That does sound like a you.”

            “Yeah, well.” Poe looked at him closely. “What’s going on?” he asked, so gently that Finn winced.

            “I dunno. I just feel – off. It just – like something just hit me all of the sudden.” He lifted his eyes to Poe’s. “Why, you a doctor now?”

            “Yes,” said Poe, and he mimed holding a pen and notepad. “Patient ‘just feels off,’” he muttered, fake-scribbling in his palm, and then peered at Finn gravely. “How long have you Just Felt Off?”

            Finn frowned, thinking about it. He _had_ felt sort of out of it, hadn’t he, all week? But midterms were coming up so he’d just chalked it up to stress or tiredness or something.

            “Few days?” he said.

            “Buddy,” Poe sighed, dropping his imaginary pen. He reached out to rest the back of his hand on Finn’s forehead instead, and this time his touch felt cool. “Buddy,” he repeated, and chewed at his lip like he did when he was nervous, or holding something back. “You’re burning up. C’mere, I got you.”

            And he did. Have Finn, that was. He was achingly gentle in helping Finn stand, pausing long enough for the dizziness to subside before he walked them over to his own bed. He even took great care in fluffing the pillow up the way Finn liked it before he let Finn lie down, shooing a curious BB-8 away.

            Because that was Poe Dameron, and Poe Dameron was – too much, all of the time.

            “You’ve gotta have some kinda fever,” Poe said, sitting on the edge of the bed as Finn got himself settled. “You, uh, probably shouldn’t go to work. Just saying.”

            “No,” Finn groaned, slinging his arm across his eyes. “Man.”

            “Yeah,” Poe said. “I know.”

            Finn lifted his arm to peer up at him. “Look, I just need like, a twenty-minute nap or something, and I can...”

            “Pull another Dameron?” Poe suggested, with a small smile. “Yeah, not gonna happen. You’re talking to _the_ Dameron here, pal.”

            “What does that even mean,” Finn mumbled.

            Poe shrugged. “C’mon,” he said. “You know Rey’d kill me if I let you pass out in a gutter.”

            This was unfortunately true in a very literal sense, so Finn changed gears. “I have class tonight,” he said. “I have _midterms_ next week.”

            “I know,” Poe repeated. “But hey, if you rest up, maybe you feel better and you get yourself to class later. And if you can’t get there, you just e-mail the professor, right?” He paused. “Or whatever it is you kids do these days. SnapChat ’em. Whatever. Instagram it. Hashtag midterms.”

            Finn snorted. But aside from Poe’s stubborn (and almost definitely feigned) ignorance of modern technology, this was a reasonable plan. Which really shouldn’t have surprised him; Poe was nothing if not reasonable when it came to anyone but himself.

            And it wasn’t the end of the world, was it? To be sick and lying in your extremely thoughtful boyfriend’s bed. It wasn’t. It –

            It really _wasn’t_ , so why did he _feel_ like this? Useless and stupid and small.

            “I’ll get you some meds and water,” Poe offered, standing up. “Or, like – do you want tea? More blankets? I could get you –”

            “Poe,” Finn interrupted weakly. “Just – can you stop. For a second.”

            Poe did. He froze in place, actually, his eyes flashing guilt. “Yeah,” he said. “’Course. Sorry.”

            “No,” Finn said, stomach lurching, either from the look on Poe’s face or from the – the whatever was going on with him today. “No, you’re not...it’s just me, I’m not used to, um. This.”

            That got him a deeply puzzled look, so Finn added, “Like, this much – caring. I’m not – it’s – I need you to just...”

            _Say what you feel, Finn,_ Rey reminded him in his head, but he didn’t know, this time, how to do that.

            (How to explain? How one moment he could be thinking _come closer, don’t go, don’t leave_ with all his being, and the next –)

            “Back off?” Poe suggested, understanding dawning in his eyes. And he took an actual step back, hands in his pockets, not quite looking at Finn. “I can do that,” he said. “Didn’t mean to crowd you or whatever, I know I’m –”

            “No. No, you’re – it’s just me,” Finn said, blinking up at him through his dizziness. “It’s my problem.”  

            Poe gazed at him straight-on then, and there was something so utterly raw in his expression that it made Finn’s chest tighten. Love and worry and hurt laid bare, and all of those things were Finn’s fault.

            “It’s me,” Finn repeated, too quiet, because he couldn’t seem to dig his voice up out of his own throat. “It’s just – me.”

            “Finn,” said Poe.

            His name always sounded different when Poe said it, so much – _more,_ like it _meant_ more, like it wasn’t just some syllable some strangers had put on his birth certificate for reasons he’d never know –

            “Finn,” Poe said again. “Of course it’s not you.” He’d stepped closer again, tentative here the way he rarely was about anything else. “It’s not your fault. Nothing that happened, you know? It isn’t –” He stopped and shook his head, which was too much for Finn’s dizziness to handle; he had to close his eyes.

             “That’s not what I meant,” Poe muttered, speaking almost to himself.

            Or – no, he’d been speaking _about_ himself, Finn realized. Trying automatically to soothe the wounds he knew best.

            When Finn opened his eyes, Poe was biting at his lip again, looking at the floor. “I just mean it’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. Whatever you want.”

            “Okay,” Finn repeated. “Thanks.”

            Poe nodded, and they were quiet for a moment, a strange uncertainty between them.  

            “Rey,” Poe said suddenly. “D’you want me to call Rey?”

            “No – I – yeah, tell her?” Finn said, struggling to focus. “Just tell her I’m – tell her I can’t come in. Tell her I’m staying here.”

            “’Course.” Poe pressed a careful kiss to his forehead. “I’ll tell her. And I’ll just, I’ll be around here, if you need me. A Snapchat away.” He offered a faint smile. “Good plan?”

            “Good plan,” Finn echoed.  

            The door closed quietly behind Poe, leaving Finn alone.

            And he thought, _This isn’t it. What I want._

*

            But it was what he had asked for. So he laid in the dark and tried to remember the last time he’d ached like this.

            When he was five years old, maybe, when everything had burned so badly that he screamed when he was touched. He still remembered, with strange clarity, hearing the doctor berate his foster parents.

            _You should have brought him sooner. Why didn’t you bring him sooner?_

            He remembered trying to curl up away from the anger in her voice. He’d tried to make himself as small as he could on the examination table, the paper sheet crumpling beneath his sneakers as he drew his legs in close to his thundering heart.

            _We thought he was being stubborn again_ , his foster mother had said, defensive and haughty. _We didn’t know._

            The rest of his time in that particular foster home was blurry, and Finn still didn’t know why. Whether he was just too sick to remember, or too young, or if something had happened –

            He didn’t know.

*

            And he didn’t feel better, when he woke up later. He felt _worse_ , all his muscles aching, his skin burning hot. He wanted – something, what? – water, _something_ – he  wanted –

            He wanted not to be alone.

            So he stood up, shaky and swaying, and opened the door.

*

            When he was younger, for a long time all he’d wanted was _out_. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know when. He knew only that he was breaking apart from the inside, that Jakku’s breathless, burning heat was accelerating the process.

            He’d stumbled upon Maz’s place when he was eighteen and out of the system and drifting between shelters. It was this cafe-restaurant-perpetual-open-mic thing, sort of, except that Maz also had this habit of taking in kids with no place to go. If they could work in the restaurant, she’d let them sleep in the cramped quarters above.

            She let them eat, too, just about whatever they wanted, and the pay was fair. So for a while Finn had stayed.

            That was where he’d met Rey.

            That was the first time someone had said his name like it mattered.

*

            “Poe,” Finn said, stumbling out toward the living room to find him, staring around through the throbbing in his skull.  

            “Hey,” Poe answered, looking up from the living room floor with a hand full of cards. BB-8 was sitting across from him with his own pile of cards, which he was ignoring in favor of chewing on Poe’s shoe, which was still on Poe’s foot. “You okay?”

            Finn paused, rubbing at his eyes. “Are you,” he said. “Are you playing cards with your dog?”

            “Yeah, but he sucks,” Poe said, reaching out to ruffle BB’s fur. “He’s got a shit poker face.”

            “I – okay,” Finn said. “That’s not what I.” He stopped, closing his eyes against another wave of dizziness, and leaned against the wall.

            “Do you –” Poe started, and then stopped, oddly self-conscious, and Finn had done that, Finn had done that to him.

            “I think I’m a little fucked up,” Finn said, conversationally. And he sat down on the floor.

            “You have a fever,” Poe said, sort of half-crawling over to sit by Finn, leaving the cards forgotten behind him. BB-8 started to chew those instead. 

            “That’s not what I mean,” Finn said. “I mean I’m – I’m a little fucked up.”

            “Everybody is,” Poe said reasonably.

            “No, I mean the way I grew up. You know?”

            “No,” Poe said, and Finn looked at him, found the reassuring warmth of his eyes. “But you can tell me. Anytime you want. And that includes never.”

            Finn thought about that for a moment.

            “Well,” he said. “Not never.”

            “Okay.”  

            “Not now, though.”

            “Also okay.”

            “I’m trying to say I’m not used to help,” Finn said abruptly. “With this stuff. Being sick and stuff.”

            Poe only nodded. He knew how and when to be quiet, contrary to Jess’s oft-expressed belief. He knew how to settle in and listen. He knew what to do with the messy piles of words Finn sometimes spilled at his feet, treated them with a kind of reverence.

            “But everything else too,” Finn went on, looking down at the floor. Sometimes it was too hard to look at Poe when he was delivering his vulnerabilities on a platter like this. ( _Say what you feel, Finn.)_ “I don’t know. It’s weird to have somebody who wants to like...take care of me? It’s just really weird. Like, it’s not _bad_. But I – it’s weird.”

            “Makes sense,” Poe murmured, which was helpful, because Finn had begun to feel like he was babbling. Maybe he was, though. Maybe Poe was just being polite.

            “But thanks,” Finn went on anyway, rubbing at his aching forehead. “For trying. And I think you...I think you should keep trying.” He paused, looking up at Poe again. “If you want to.”

            “Finn,” said Poe, low and quiet. He didn’t smile when Finn met his eyes, just regarded him seriously. “I’m always gonna want to.”

*

            When Finn and Rey had gotten their first – their only – apartment, when it was really theirs, when they knew no one could take it away –

            Once they knew that, Rey waited until she had enough leftover cash and bought three small, wilting houseplants.

            If it was anyone else it would have frustrated Finn, because couldn’t she have gotten some extra food with that money? Couldn’t she have gotten soap, or toothpaste, or any of the infuriating number of small things that were needed to live a life, that added up to too much after the rent was paid, that had to be so carefully rationed?

            But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Rey. And all her life she had wanted this, she’d told Finn, quiet in the dark and the dust of their broken down van back in Jakku. All her life she had wanted green, green, green. Trees and grass and air that hung heavy with rain. All her life she had wanted to see an ocean up close, in person, to know that it was real and alive and that she was too.

            And so when she’d finally gotten the van running, when they had enough money for gas and no debts left to chase them, they’d driven out here to the coast. Hungry and determined and horribly free.

            “I want a windowsill,” Rey had whispered to Finn, pulled over at a truck stop, curled up in the back of the van to sleep. This was how they soothed the endless anxieties of _will we be able to get food_ and _gas tomorrow or do we have to choose again, will the van hold up another ten miles, will the sky ever look like this again, when will the air feel like rain, will we make it, can we do this, can we really do this._ Whispers, back and forth, of what they wanted, of the life they hoped they were driving toward.

            “I want a windowsill, with plants in it,” Rey had said. “I don’t know why. It’s stupid.”

            “It’s not stupid,” Finn had whispered back. “It’s not.”

             The plants were half-price at the grocery store, unlabeled and withered but green enough to make Rey beam like she’d created them herself. She put them in the windowsill, very carefully.

            When the first one died, Finn felt something twist hard and tight in his chest. It surprised him, how much it hurt.

            But Rey said, “Maybe we can save it,” and carefully pulled the dead stalks free until they could see a few tiny, still-green leaves just above the dirt, smaller than Finn’s fingernail.

             Impossibly fragile, still growing.


End file.
